York | Archive | 2002 | August | 14
From the Evening Press, first published Wednesday 14th Aug 2002.
A RARE Roman artefact, currently in the final stages of conservation at the York Archaeological Trust, may turn out to be some of Britain's earliest "stolen property".
The find, an elephant ivory woodworking plane, which dates from the Roman era, was unearthed near Goodmanham, in East Yorkshire, during work on a steel pipeline in the summer of 2000.
It is thought that the plane was used to work the grain of wood. Ivory is a high status material, but the settlement unearthed at Goodmanham was not a particularly wealthy one, which has led archaeologists to wonder how the ivory plane ended up there.
"The buildings would not have been particularly grand, and the types of pottery and animal bones we found tell us that the site was not inhabited by wealthy people," said Ken Steedman, project manager for Humber Field Archaeology.
"It may be that the plane reached the site as a result of salvage or scavenging from a more wealthy site in the neighbourhood which had been abandoned." It is also conceivable that the plane was stolen.
The plane is currently undergoing its final restoration at the York Archaeological Trust's Conservation Lab in York. It is particularly rare as it is the only example ever to have been found complete and made of ivory.
"The plane may have belonged to craftsmen or been made as a presentation piece," said Professor Derek Long. "It could have been made in Italy or even North Africa, and brought to Britain by an expatriate craftsman."
"How many hands it has gone through over the years is impossible to tell, and we just do not know the mechanisms of how it got to East Yorkshire," said Ken Steedman.
Brooches, coins and twelve human skeletons were also unearthed at the Goodmanham site. All finds are to be donated to the East Riding of Yorkshire Museums Service.
Updated: 16:15 Wednesday, August 14, 2002
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